Greenwashing and ESG Rating Penalties Among Chinese Listed Firms

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-825-2_20How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Greenwashing; ESG Rating; R&D Investment; Ownership Concentration; Panel Regression

Abstract

In the context of intensifying national “dual carbon” objectives and the rapid expansion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment, the veracity of corporate environmental disclosures has attracted increasing scholarly and regulatory attention. Using A‑share listed firms in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing over the period 2015-2024 as the sample, this study employs cross‑matched Huazheng ESG ratings and Bloomberg environmental disclosure data to construct an index measuring the divergence between disclosed environmental information and substantive green activities, which serves as a proxy for greenwashing. The paper then systematically investigates the effect of greenwashing on ESG ratings and explores relevant boundary conditions. Empirical results indicate that greenwashing exerts a statistically significant negative effect on ESG ratings, and this relationship remains robust across firms with different ownership structures and across industries with varying environmental sensitivity. Further analyses reveal that research and development (R&D) investment mitigates the adverse impact of greenwashing on ratings, whereas the moderating role of ownership concentration is not statistically significant, suggesting that incentives for major shareholder monitoring may be offset by motivations for information manipulation. The findings offer policy implications for rating agencies to strengthen substantive verification procedures and for firms to prioritize technological innovation over superficial disclosures.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Qinyue Zhang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/10
TI  - Greenwashing and ESG Rating Penalties Among Chinese Listed Firms
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Public Service, Economic Management and Sustainable Development (PESD 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 201
EP  - 214
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-825-2_20
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-825-2_20
ID  - Zhang2026
ER  -